Rooting for Ancestors: A dodgy legend cited in 1733

Rabbit trails to the ancestors

© 2018 Christy K. Robinson

While researching the lives and stories of your ancestors, have you ever lost the thread of your original search when you find a different ancestor and a previously unknown factoid, which you must sniff out? That happens to me all the time. It's called a rabbit trail. The idea is that a rabbit meanders through a yard, randomly nibbling on the garden, then leaves the scene before a dog comes along and tries to sniff out its scent.

I was looking for information on ancestor Giles Slocum's excommunication from the Baptist Church of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and found an old book called Materials Towards a History of the American Baptists (by Morgan Edwards, 1770). Paging through, I recognized names of several ancestors including Rev. Nathaniel Jenkins (seventh great-grandfather), of whom I've written elsewhere in this site.

Rev. Jenkins was one of a wave of immigrant Welsh Baptists who ministered in New Jersey and Pennsylvania from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. He arrived in 1712, married to Esther Jones, with a family of three small daughters and a toddler son. Five more children were added until 1729.

Immediately, he went to work in a loan office, and was elected to the colonial legislature, as well as serving as pastor of the Baptist church in Cape May, New Jersey, a whaling community. Though I can't find details of what "bloody flux" caused a major epidemic and die-off in New France and New England and the ports of New Jersey, some historians think it was measles or dysentery making the rounds from 1714-1720. Rev. Jenkins had to comfort the dying and their families.

In 1721, Jenkins was able to stop an assembly bill that would have punished people who held different religious beliefs than the majority of Christians, including him. See Another Brick in the Wall of Liberty.

In addition to preaching at Cape May, he spoke often at churches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1728, he was called to pastor at Shiloh, New Jersey, where he served both "Keithians" or Seventh-day Baptists, and Baptists who met on Sundays.

Good man! Educated, well respected, hard working, advocated for the right to religious liberty, was beloved by his parishioners, and esteemed by his colleagues.

In 1559, in the first years of Queen Elizabeth's reign in England, a Welshman named Humphrey Llwyd published Cronica Walliae, a history of Wales that included a legend that Prince Madog ap Owain of Gwynedd had tired of fraternal fighting for the Welsh crown after Owain died in 1170, and had sailed away to discover America. He formed a colony of Welsh people among Native Americans. He returned to Wales and brought another ship of Welsh people and supplies back to North America. After that, there was no report of him.

Politically, this colonization by a Welsh prince could mean that Spain's claim on the New World through Cristobal Colon (Columbus) would be negated and the British could lay claim to the continent by right of first discovery 300 years before Columbus. Don't forget that Spain and England were enemies, mostly over Catholic/Protestant issues, but also over trade. The story grew in the 1700s, with the addition that this tribe of Welsh Indians had beards. A legend grew that Madog's people had built stone structures like a castle, laid out streets, and eventually had children with the Indians. Early explorers were supposed to have met Indians who could understand or speak Welsh. The thought was that Madog had sailed west to America and north on the Mississippi River and his colony had integrated with and become the Mandan tribe of North Dakota. There is, of course, no evidence or even a slight possibility that a Prince Madog ever came to America, but why would that stop a Welsh storyteller from promoting the myth on a long winter's evening? The tale was told for more than 300 years. Even Thomas Jefferson told Merriwether Lewis to investigate whether this story was a possibility, in 1803.

In 1733, when Rev. Jenkins was 54 years old, he and some colleagues wrote a letter to the British Missionary Society, which is contained in the 1770 Baptist history book. This is the explanation of the letter, and the letter itself.

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           Morgan Edwards wrote: "Though it be doubtful whether a nation of ancient Britons (usually called Welsh Indians)

do exist in America yet the grounds of the conjecture are not to be despised. It is no longer than 1767

since some Indians from the back of lake Superior averred at Quebec

"That far westward of them was a tribe of white people who wore beards, and dressed differently

from the Spaniards, French and English; that they had the use of arms, possessed a well improved

country, but were very shy of the black Indians, &c."

See the account published at London in the Ledger of Feb. 2, 1768. However, our forefathers believed there were such a people, as appears by their letters, one of which (addressed to the British [Missionary] Society, and dated Philadelphia, Mar. 1, 1733-4) is as followeth.

Gentlemen,
It is not unknown to you that Maddoc Gwynedd, prince of Wales did, about 500 years ago, sail to the westward with several ships and a great number of his subjects; and was never heard of after. Some reliques of the Welsh tongue being found in old and deserted settlements about the Mississippi, make it probably that he sailed up that river. And we, being moved with brotherly love to our countrymen, are meditating to go in search of them; but are discouraged by the distance of the place, and uncertainty of the course we should steer. If you can give us any information and direction, together with some help to bear the expence we shall find men adventurous enough to undertake the expedition; having no other end in view than to carry the gospel of peace among our ancient brethren; and believing it will be to the enlargement of the british Empire in America, and a proof of prior right to the whole continent, should we happily succeed."

We remain, Gentlemen, Your loving countrymen,
Nathaniel Jenkins, John Davis,

Benj. Griffiths, David Evans,

Joseph Eaton, Rynallt Howel.

*****
Keep in mind the context here. This is British colonial America, 40 years before the Revolution, and 70 years before the Lewis & Clark Expedition to the West Coast. The Welsh ministers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey had been born and educated in Wales, and had spent decades already in America, without returning to their native country for a professional visit or vacation. Learning a Welsh story about their ancestors would have quickened their hearts. Combined with missionary zeal, it would have been very exciting to meet their "cousins" and convert them to Christianity.

For more information on the legend of Prince Madog and the Welsh Indians, click HERE.